Live in the Spirit, Not the Flesh
This will Level-Up your Life, AND your Spirituality
I recently saw this on Substack Notes, posted by
“The enemy wants you to react in the flesh. Stay in the Spirit.”
Great advice! But what does it mean, and how do we live that way? I have some guidance to share with you to that end.
The quote struck me because it encapsulated something in my own experience that’s present, and strong, but so mysterious and “silent” that I wouldn’t have thought to write about it; staying in the spirit, rather than in the flesh. Let’s break this down from start to finish, and then I’ll do my best to explain how we can be in the spirit, and avoid reacting in the flesh.
Reaction, and “the Flesh”
“…to react in the flesh”
One of the devil’s most effective tools is to elicit a reaction from us. But like any tool, it can work against him, too. The devil can’t force our hand or make us do anything. He can only prompt us to follow a path that leads to the result he wants.
For example, he prompts you to indulgence before he prompts you to sin. He leads you down a path of comfort, pleasure, excess, and confidence before a sinful fall (thought, word, or deed) and then he uses small sins to lead us to greater ones. Even then he can’t force us into the sin, he only prompts us to choose to do it.
The devil tries to play us as puppets. One of the ways he does that is by prompting reactions to things that happen in the daily events of our lives—mental reactions, emotional ones, or reactions through temptation. We react in fear, inordinate elation, despair. These are “fleshly” reactions because they’re rooted in our lower nature—the “manamal”, the fallen person. They’re reactions detached from the higher qualities of confidence, joy, hope, surrender to God and His providence that are ordered toward—and orient us to—the eternal. They elevate the mind, the spirit; and even the body shows signs of their effects. But fleshly reactions tend to bring us down, and keep us there.
(In a later post I’ll talk about why orientation toward the Eternal order is so important.)
Reactions are opportunities to choose and in those moments we can either choose well or choose poorly. The devil bets on us choosing poorly, so he prompts us to be reactive. He expects us to react in the flesh, as we are apt to do, and we usually give him exactly what he expects. We panic, we despair, we rage; we play out a doomsday scenario in our thoughts and imagination. He loves the “doomsdaying” the most because it conditions the reason and the imagination toward some sinful act.
(Paid Members, see the Afterthoughts segment at the end of this article)
Every reaction is a bet he places against us; a bet he usually wins! But he can lose the bet, too!
Staying in the Spirit
James 4:7
“Submit yourselves to God;
resist the devil and he will flee from you!
First, we’re not talking about the Holy Spirit here, we’re talking about the spiritual. Just as it’s possible to react in the flesh, as the devil wants, every prompt to reaction is also an opportunity to react in the spirit, which is what God wants and the devil fears.
The choice to reacting in the spirit is one where the soul doesn’t settle itself in the temporal, but separates itself from it; reaching toward the Eternal Father, the source of life, peace, and our ‘rock of refuge’.
It requires first that we maintain our interior peace. Even if our peace is assaulted, we should never surrender it. Let the enemy pound on the door of your interior castle; let him pound, and rail against it. You only lose when you decide to open the door and allow him to not simply assault your peace, but to come in and rob you of it. Peace is very important, never surrender it.
Psalm 18:6
“In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.”
Remain at peace, with confidence God, and Trust in the Lord Jesus. Then, in peace, turn to God in prayer.
My advice is that you barely pray at all about the thing that has you unsettled and in a reactive state. Maybe mention it, follow it up with an expression of faith, hope, and love for God, and then focus your prayer on something else. The devil wants you to dwell on things; God wants you to rest in Him. So do that…rest.
Be with God in that prayer space. Direct your attention toward him and settle there. It may take the form of a conversation about something positive, or a meditation on something in scripture. The important thing isn’t what you pray about, but that you enter that “space” at relative peace, and you just rest there with God. Be with Him, and let him BE with you…and just stay there a while.
Anxiety vs. Determination
Anxiety is based in fear. But determination is based in hope, obedience to God (humility) and the virtue of diligence. We have to choose what is fixed on the eternal, and reject or subdue that which brings us down to the finite and temporal—to the land of the dead.
Matthew 6:25
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
Here Jesus is redirecting our focus away from reactions in the flesh. There’s more going on than what you can see, and what you can see (whatever is stressing you out) is unspeakably tiny in the grand scheme of everything. God will sort it out. Trust and believe that, and carry on without focusing on it.
Matthew 6:34
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
Sufficient for today is the trouble of today. So is Jesus telling us to be anxious about now, rather than about tomorrow? What’s the point of that, if we’re still being anxious? Well, that’s not what Jesus is saying. Focus today on what you have to do today and let God sort out the rest. What do you have to do today? Do that and do it in peace. Do your job well. Tend to your family. Do your duties.
Choose diligence first, and you’ll make “anxiety” tire out from chasing after you, until it eventually faints and you find yourself controlling it rather than it controlling you.
Hey, paid members, don’t forget your Afterthoughts segment, linked below. It’s a great one!
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Afterthoughts
For paid members of StE
Guard Your Imagination from the Devil’s Influence: T.J. Haines’ Afterthought
Extending this essay, ‘Live in the Spirit, Not the Flesh,’ I emphasize the crucial role of controlling the imagination and reason. In this Afterthought session, I warn listeners to be cautious of imaginary doomsday scenarios because the devil can manipulate those thoughts and images as material to prompt the person to actions ranging fro mildly irrational, to greatly irrational, and even to sinful.
